montreal – Page 91 – Things I find in the garbage

Making some coin

May 22, 2013 garbagefinds11 Comments

One of the things I found in the woman’s bags yesterday was a plastic bag full of coins. Included were a bunch of nickels and dimes, a few commemorative Canadian dollars from the 80s, a couple of American Half-Dollars from the 70s, a coin from Jamaica (1969), and a couple of coins from the British Carribean Territories Eastern Group (1955 and 65) which once encompassed Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua. There were also around 200 pennies, a few of which date to the 30s.

It’s sort of bizarre to see valuable coins being casually thrown out (and having someone yell at you for wanting them!). Even the lowly penny, which many people don’t care about at all (and I totally get that), has significant value for the metals inside. The Canadian Mint, now that it has ceased production of the coin, has begun melting down all the old pennies to recycle the metal. The older ones were mostly copper which has a fair deal of value in the market.

By recycling them we can get that metal back into circulation, which means that we won’t need to mine as much new metal, which means there’ll be less pollution. All in all it’s a good thing. It’s sad to see the pennies go, but remember that there’s still many billions sitting doing nothing across the country! I’m going to throw mine in one of those change sorting machines to make a quick buck or two.

As an aside, will this impending influx of recycled copper into the marketplace drive down copper prices? Interesting to think about.

I’ll spend the nickels and dimes and try to sell the other coins at a yard sale for a modest profit. Overall I’m going to estimate that this bag of change will net me around 12$. I recently sold a pair of old police handcuffs I found a while back for 20$. I also sold the curling badges from a few days ago to an online buyer for 40$, making my monthly profit 210$.

I still have to sell / list some of the things I found this month, so my “real profits” will become more evident in the coming days.

Regardless, it’s nearing the end of the month. Hopefully I’ll come across some things that’ll give a nice bump to my profit margin.

Leave my garbage alone

May 21, 2013May 21, 2013 garbagefinds11 Comments

In my years trash picking I’ve had pretty generally good experiences with the people whose garbage I picked through. Some have asked me politely to leave while others have simply noted that there was nothing interesting to find (whether I trusted that or not is another story entirely). At the same time many people have been very kind and generous, going out of their way to give me information about the stuff they put on the curb or to encourage me to take things home.

Today, however, I met someone who was quite displeased with the notion of me going through her trash. In fact, she was furious.

I was looking through the bags in the picture above. I was a bit more than half-way done when a woman opened her front door and started screaming at me. She told me to put her trash back, that I had no business going through her garbage, that I was a bad person and that I should get a job like everyone else. It was a quite the diatribe I tell you what!

I put a few of the things I had found back in the bags as she requested (including some old records) but kept what I already had put in my backpack. I wanted to keep what I had found and wasn’t really convinced by her logic. She never really explained why she was so angry, though it doesn’t seem she has much respect for the scavengers of the world. All in all I think I composed myself pretty well under fire.

Ah well, so it goes. I expect most of the people I meet going forward will be much more pleasant. However, I’m not going to post pictures of the things I found here – it’s not worth the potential hassle. Either way it’s getting close to the end of the month so I’ll definitely have some more finds for you soon!

The Fencibles

May 20, 2013May 20, 2013 garbagefinds8 Comments

I made my way to Rosemont this morning and managed to avoid the rain. I didn’t see much interesting trash but sometimes all it takes is one spot to get a decent haul. That’s what happened today when I stumbled upon this pile of stuff that looked as if it had been stored away for a while.

I pulled these boxes out of the angular-looking bag in the front. There was an old crystal radio kit that looks to be intact and an old train set. The train set box was a bit wet from the rain but the rest was well protected by the bag.

The train set is pretty sweet. There are eight cars (all in great shape!) and a bunch of rails and switches. I’m going to see exactly how many pieces I have later; hopefully it’s a full set.

Inside the envelope was a board game designed by the tourism department of the Quebec government. It looks to be from the 60s or 70s and was made to promote Quebec’s historical landmarks.

In another bag were these old pins under framed glass. The majority of pins are from curling clubs ranging from Montreal to Nova Scotia to as far as Detroit. There are two pins from the 1948 and 1949 Quebec International Bonspiel (curling tournament) and I figure most of the other pins are from around that era. Four of the pins – from the Shawinigan, Trois-Rivieres, Arvida and St-Stephen Curling Clubs – are marked as sterling silver.

In the middle is a badge marked “Glengarry Fencibles” which I think is a WWII battle honour. Below that is a St-Benedict medal.

I took these out from under the glass. Whoever put them there took off the pins and stuck a little sticky tab is their place to keep them stuck on the red velvet background. That probably decreases their monetary value somewhat but these are still really beautiful old badges in really great shape. The group picture really doesn’t do them justice.

One pin is a bit of a mystery. It’s on the top left of the first picture and it’s to the lower left of the Glengarry badge in the second. If anyone knows anything about this (or any of the other pins) let me know!